By David Van Cleve

Have you ever wondered how your life could have been radically changed by a small event? Mine was changed forever by the night in college when I made popcorn balls. Actually… it was the night I TRIED to make popcorn balls – quite unsuccessfully, as it turns out.

Let me back up. I was an upperclassmen at UC Santa Cruz – the famous Fightin’ Banana Slugs. At the beginning of my senior year, I perused the requirements for graduation to make sure I would be able to fulfill all academic needs in the next three quarters. Foreign language – check. Enough classes in my major (Geography) – check. But there, staring at me and laughing, was one I had not thought about… Fine Arts.

I looked over the possible classes, knew I could never pass most of them, and settled on Sculpture. After all, I had made a ton of snakes and ashtrays out of clay in my elementary school art classes. (Remember ashtrays?)

I put off the sculpture until spring quarter, which meant that if I did not pass it, I would not graduate on time. My parents were already asking me silly questions, such as “What are you going to do after you graduate?” My standard response of “Santa Cruz does not prepare you for a job; it prepares you for life” was starting to wear thin with them, as it was with my creditors. So no pressure – I had better make some awesome snakes and ashtrays that quarter.

My professor turned out to be serious about his class; he insisted that we actually do something creative that quarter. My attempts at real clay sculpture were pathetic – I had zero talent, even when presented with nude live models. The prof told me that was okay; if I could not sculpt clay, try to be creative with other media. I was walking through the redwood forest on campus one day and found a beautiful piece of manzanita. It looked sort of like a fish. So I carved it and carved it until it looked even more like a fish. It had a natural fin and a hole where the fish eye would normally be located. I proudly turned it in, and the professor promptly asked me if it was a snake or an ashtray. Not good enough to pass his class, he told me.

Running out of time here. Totally unrelated to my fine arts dilemma, one Friday night, I decided to make popcorn balls. I found a recipe, which said that you had to make a candy mixture over the stove until it was in the “hardball” stage. This meant it had to be exactly the right temperature so that it was hard enough to get the popcorn to stick together and soft enough to eat without breaking teeth and making you look like you were from West Virginia. Since this hardball stage was so critical, the recipe recommended making the popcorn first and keeping it warm in the oven so that it was ready when the candy mixture was ready. So I did make the popcorn, but put It in the oven to stay warm using a large white plastic bowl.

As you have already guessed, the plastic melted onto the bottom of the oven, and the popcorn melted onto the sheet of white plastic. So I went to get the popcorn out at the onset of hardball, and was dismayed to find this white gooey mess. I turned off the oven and told my roommate what had happened. I told him I would clean it up in the morning. I was sure my entire Saturday would be dedicated to cleaning the oven.

But Saturday morning, when I went to clean the oven, the white mess came out of the oven in one flat sheet of white plastic and popcorn. I just stuck a knife under one corner, and it popped right out. It took me a while to digest this serendipitous turn of events, but I finally realized I just might have my sculpture project!

I actually did turn it in at the next class. The professor gave me the side eye and the stink eye at the same time, using one eye for each. He kept turning it over and around silently, and I finally said, “Well, you DID encourage us to experiment with new media.” He shushed me, kept turning it over and finally asked me if it had a title. I told him, “A Metaphor for Man’s Inhumanity to Man.” He finally lost it and laughed about as hard as I have ever seen anyone laugh (except for my Dad when we watched “Blazing Saddles” together). The whole class waited breathlessly for the outcome. He finally recovered and told me he would pass me if I promised never to take another art class.

Deal.

I passed the class, graduated, survived the civil service process for becoming a park ranger (which, at the time, required a bachelor’s degree), and three months later was a state park ranger at Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve. The 50 years since have been amazingly fun and rewarding – thanks, in part, to the mighty popcorn ball.